Culture Shock
by StringynKel
Summary: Aqwe has a reason for every life he saves from drowning. Some are to better the lives of mortals, but others are just to get Papa Ge and Ezrulie to stop bickering at each other. Rated for swearing and descriptions of Papa Ge's fondness for dead decor.


At six feet seven inches and two hundred pounds, clad in black and red and festooned with skulls and pelts (some animals, others human), Papa Ge was not the most approachable figure on the island

At six feet seven inches and two hundred pounds, clad in black and red and festooned with skulls and pelts (some animals, others human), Papa Ge was not the most approachable figure on the island. Small children - the only ones who could see him as he stalked the night, searching for dying souls – tended to run from him, crying to their mothers and sniveling pathetically. The old and dying, who could sense his presence, though they did not see him, recoiled from his hand with a fervent energy that almost matched the vitality of their youth. Even animals knew the sound of his dread footsteps and shrank away from the scent of his foul breath.

So why the hell did he awaken this morning with an obnoxious fur-ball of a kitten on his face, mewling in his ear and cutting off his airway?

Growling, Papa Ge pushed the kitten off of his face and rolled out of bed, dragging his sheets along with him. For the next five minutes, he worked on disentangling himself from the bed sheets. This task having been completed, he set to dressing himself in a pair of jet black breeches, a shirt that used to be white until he decided to enlist the help of a rather cheeky warrior in dying it an attractive shade of red, and a leather vest that may or may not have once been the daughter of a Grande Homme that had boasted to be greater even than Death. Topping the look off with a hat decorated with pheasant feathers and a cute little frog skeleton and grabbing his staff, Papa Ge drifted out of his room, happily humming a dirge and completely forgetting about the furry nuisance that had awoken him from his dreams of carnage and mayhem.

Papa Ge continued his way down the corridor of the Hall of the Gods to the common room, where Asaka usually made breakfast (sweetbread and mangos garnished with various spices for herself, Ezrulie, and Agwe; for Papa Ge she usually caged any sick and dying animals and left them there, half-alive, on the table for him to consume on his own time, preferably when everyone else was out) and flung himself down in his chair to examine the catch of the day. Three rats, a toucan with a broken wing, and a spider monkey whose tail would make a rather dashing scarf to add to his ensemble. Not bad. He'd have to thank Asaka for this later. Looking around to make sure nobody was around to witness the feast, Papa Ge cackled and fell upon his terrified breakfast with all the ferocity of a half-starved jaguar.

After finishing his meal and crafting its remains into various jewelry, clothing, or exciting home décor, Papa Ge grabbed his weapon of choice (a staff whose handle was crafted out of a human skull that was fun to whack people with) and shuffled out into the mortal world. The first job of the day was a Grand Homme who had contracted some strange, exotic illness from one of the native girls and had been on the decline for some months now. This task having been completed quite successfully (the wails of the other Hommes could be heard all the way on the other side of the island), Papa Ge was feeling rather pleased with himself. This feeling disintegrated, however, as he moved on to the other side of the island to exterminate an aging and rather senile woman and in doing so managed to cross paths with Ezrulie, who was completely blowing off her daily tasks and appeared to be looking for something.

"Oh, Papa Ge!" she called to him, just as he was about to deal the deathblow to the old nag.

"Working," Papa Ge muttered darkly in reply, raising his staff above his head.

"But this is important!" Ezrulie whined, trying to tug the staff out of his hand.

Papa Ge sighed. "What?"

"I can't find my kitten, Tanona!" Ezrulie replied, causing Papa Ge to wish that shooting himself would have an actual lasting effect, rather than just ruining his clothing and forcing him to obtain more in a rather brutish fashion.

"You have a kitten?" Papa Ge asked intelligently, tugging his staff out of Ezrulie's rather fragile hands.

"Yep!" Ezrulie answered brightly, seemingly forgetting her problems for the moment. "Actually, it was Aqwe's. See, Aqwe found it drowning in the river and decided to give it to me, because he knew that if you got to it first, you'd be wearing it as a brooch or a hat or something, and that's something nobody wants to see. Oh, but now the poor thing is lost and I can't find him! Have you seen him?"

Papa Ge stood still for a moment, processing Ezrulie's rather rushed story. Suddenly, his mind wandered back to that morning, and he remembered the annoying fluffball that had suffocated him out of his slumber.

"Damn it!" he shouted, completely forgetting about the old woman he was supposed to do away with and storming back to the Hall of the Gods, Ezrulie following him and screaming at him not to hurt her precious Tanona.

"Damn it, Ezrulie, if your wretched animal has so much as shed on any of my stuff, I will figure out a way to turn it into a chandelier, which I will then force you to keep in your room as a constant reminder of what happens when you let small, furry nuisances meddle in the affairs of the god of death!"

"But Papa Ge!" Ezrulie screeched, horrified. "It's only a little kitten! How could you be so- so heartless!"

Papa Ge was about to reply with something scathing, but at that moment, they had arrived at the door of his room, where his new coat had been chewed on, several of his skull-turned-candlestick holders lay cracked on the floor, and his favorite hat was currently being chewed on by a small black and white ball of impertinence.

"I'm going to kill it," Papa Ge growled, gritting his teeth and shoving past Ezrulie, who seemed on the verge of tears.

"NO!" she screamed, throwing herself between the god of death and the kitten of destruction. "He's only a baby! He'll learn! I swear I'll keep him out of your room! I'll even pay you back for all the stuff he ruined!"

"Pay me back?" Papa Ge inquired incredulously. "How?"

Ezrulie seemed to notice the flaw in her logic, and paused a moment before answering, "I'll make any girl on the island that you want fall in love with you."

"Ezrulie," Papa Ge said, sitting on a chair fashioned entirely out of human bones and hair, "what in the name of heaven and earth would I _possibly_ gain from having some frail, whining, hormonal brat fawning over me incessantly?"

"Please?" Ezrulie begged, cuddling the kitten from hell and looking up at him with big, tear-filled amber eyes.

Papa Ge stared at her harshly for a moment before sighing. "Fine," he conceded, mentally cursing himself for folding under Ezrulie's puppy-eyes.

"Oh, thank you!" Ezrulie squealed, throwing herself at Papa Ge in a foolish attempt to hug him and falling against his desk when he moved out of the way of her embrace of doom.

"But if I ever catch that… that _feline_ in my room again…" Papa Ge growled menacingly and drew one finger across his throat, making an extremely realistic slicing sound.

"O-okay," Ezrulie replied, looking somewhere between offended at being denied her hug, and horrified at the thought of her new pet being beheaded. She stumbled to her feet and rushed out of Papa Ge's room, kitten in tow. "Oh!" she shouted, stopping at the doorframe. "When you see a girl you like, tell me! I really owe you one!"

"Get the hell out of here, Ezrulie," Papa Ge retorted, already in the process of trying to repair his damaged possessions.

The rest of the day, though, as Papa Ge went about his business, he couldn't help but ponder Ezrulie's proposition. _I can just imagine how that would go,_ Papa Ge smiled to himself after doing in the old lady that he had been trying to kill earlier that day. _Mom, Dad, meet Papa Ge, you know, the god that killed Grandma! We're getting married tomorrow!_ Somehow he didn't see that going down well with the future in-laws.

That night, though, his mind kept wandering away from the wholesome peasant girls and the beautiful Grande Hommes, fixating instead on a pair of tear-filled amber eyes.

Later that night, the whole Hall of the Gods would be awakened by the sound of Papa Ge's projectile vomiting into the fountain in the courtyard, intermingling with miserable groans of, "Get out of my head, you manipulative bitch!"


End file.
